read - Brooke Hauser

The Face
Kate Moss is private, reticent, remote.
Except when she’s not. The model opens
up, laughs hard, and does her best
to explain how, exactly, a nice girl from
Croydon became a style icon. By Brooke Hauser
S
ome artists work with paint, some work with clay,
and some work with Kate Moss. Her elusive beauty
has inspired several works of art, including a portrait by Lucian Freud, a solid-gold statue in her
image, and two holograms. Yet her allure in large
part rests on her sheer effortlessness. Pressed on
why she thinks she is such a powerful inspiration
for artists, Moss simply says, “I must be a bit of a
blank canvas.” A pause. “Or something.” It’s comments like these that have earned Moss
the reputation of being an enigma, but the model
herself has a hard time explaining what happens
when she gets in front of the camera. “I can’t do a
snapshot. I blink,” she says. “At a shoot, I’m really
aware of everything. When they do makeup, sometimes I can’t see what they’re doing, but I can feel it. I know what I look like,
even when I can’t see what they’ve done. I know how to compose myself.”
On this rainy afternoon in London, Moss is on set with Mario Testino, who has
been photographing the model for over 20 years and calls her his muse. He says,
“She always has something new to show you or make you discover.” Like many
people who have worked with Moss over time, Testino has become part of her
fashion family, which also includes makeup artist Tom Pecheux, hairstylist Sam
McKnight, and Allure’s creative director, Paul Cavaco. It’s a testament to Moss’s
ingenuity as a model and her qualities as a friend that they are as entranced by
her as ever. Says her longtime manager, Jen Ramey: “She’s absolutely infectious.”
Of course, Moss is famous for being fun. Before spending time in the country
with her ten-year-old daughter, Lila, and husband, Jamie Hince (guitarist for the
Kills), Moss was a fixture in the British tabloids. She has dated rock stars (Pete
Doherty of the Libertines) and Johnny Depp. The tableaux of Moss’s day-to-day
life are often more glamorous than the photographs that she poses in, and they’re
also real. People are forever trying to imitate her look—rarely successfully.
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Photographed by MARIO TESTINO
Fox-fur-and-velvet shrug by
Dennis Basso. Makeup colors:
ScandalEyes Eye Shadow
Stick in Bulletproof Beige
and Stay Glossy Lipgloss in
Diamond Dust by Rimmel
London. Spray tan by St.
Tropez. These pages: Hair,
Sam McKnight; makeup,
Tom Pecheux; manicure,
Lorraine Griffin. Prop stylist:
Jack Flanagan. Fashion
editor: Paul Cavaco. Details,
see Shopping Guide.
Fox-fur coat and velvet
dress by Marc Jacobs.
Velvet-and-Swarovskicrystal shoes by
René Caovilla. Gold
plate earrings by Robert
Lee Morris. Loliteand-ruby bracelet by
Iradj Moini. Makeup
colors: Waterproof Gel
Eyeliner in Black and
Lasting Finish By Kate
Lipstick in 01 by Rimmel
London. Spray tan by
St. Tropez. Details, see
Shopping Guide.
157
meet. “It’s fucking Kate Moss!” says one
of the models, after shaking her hand.
This reaction is not unusual. People
can get a bit silly in the presence of an
icon. But those who know Moss best
see a different side of her: To them,
she’s just one of the gang. During a
break in shooting, the model jokes
around with the hair and makeup
crew. The subject now is tan lines. “I don’t mind a bikini bottom. My
husband likes lines on the bum—men
like white bums, like a frame,” says
Moss, who is the face and body of St.
Tropez’s self-tanning products. “Like a bull’s-eye?” someone asks. “Exactly,” Moss says. “I don’t do
it on the boobs, though—I try not to
have a white boob.” Moss is clearly in her element, and
it’s easy to see why, at 39, she is still
working as much as ever. These are her
people, and she seems to love being a
model. (In addition to her St. Tropez
and Kérastase ads, Moss currently
appears in campaigns for Versace,
Givenchy, Vivienne Westwood, and
Rimmel London.) “It’s nice to carry
on working with photographers and
growing older, like Lauren Hutton,”
Moss says. “Everyone in fashion has
a youthful spirit because it’s fun—and
you have to be fun. You might get
grayer and wear glasses, but you don’t
really change inside.” If anything,
Showing Skin
In Kate Moss’s latest campaign, her
skin itself is what she’s promoting—
or at least, skin color, via St. Tropez’s
self-tanning products. “Anything
goes with a bit of a glow, especially if
it’s not too dark,” says
Moss. Though she now
sticks to a bottle
bronze, in the past, on
holidays, she would
sometimes overdo it in
the sun. “I have made
the mistake of getting
too tanned, but I didn’t
realize it until I got
back to England and
everyone laughed at
me.” Now, her goal is an
effortless look. Moss
says, “I do it when I feel
a bit pasty—which, in
England, is quite a lot.”
she has become more comfortable
in front of the camera. Moss adds: “I
used to be so scared about ‘Oh, I don’t
want to show my body.’ Now that I’ve
shown it, it doesn’t bug me about my
moles, or ‘This isn’t big enough’ and
‘That’s not smooth enough.’ ” When it
comes to hard-and-fast beauty rules,
Moss doesn’t have many (this is a
woman who once cut her own bangs
with kitchen scissors), but she is adamant about one. “Always clean hair.
That’s a must. If in doubt, wash it,”
says the model, who is shedding her
grunge past in another way as well. “I
haven’t got great posture now because
of the grunge days. I’m not a teenager,
and I think I should sit straight. That’s
my next thing.”
Originally from the London suburb of Croydon, Katherine Ann Moss
was just 14 when she was discovered in New York’s JFK airport and
16 when she appeared in the British
magazine The Face, freckled, smiling, and slightly awkward. “I didn’t
like my teeth,” she says. “I didn’t
like my flat chest, either. I was like,
‘Oh, I’m going to have a tit job.’ Can
you imagine?” Moss herself admired
supermodels like Linda Evangelista,
but her own look was very different. In the early ’90s, when grunge
was beginning to edge out ’80s glamour, the young model was becoming
synonymous with a new movement:
the waif. “It was just the opposite of
Cindy Crawford and those girls,” says
Moss. “They were a few years older
than me. It’s like me now—I’ve got
boobs and hips. But I was younger. I
hadn’t really developed properly.” As
hairstylist Guido puts it, “[We were]
coming out of a very glamorous time
and then suddenly there was this little
girl from Croydon with no makeup
and very undone hair. It really caused
a storm, how this could be conceived
as a new beauty. People were up in
arms about it.”
People were also up in arms
about Moss’s weight. After appearing nude in ads for Calvin Klein perfumes in 1993, Moss was pegged as
anorexic and “heroin chic”—labels
that bother her to this day. “It was
horrible, especially the anorexic
Free Stuff: We’re giving away products from St. Tropez. Turn to page 193 for details on how to enter.
158
john manno
T
he mistake is,
it’s Kate’s style,”
says Candy Pratts
Price, a contributing editor at
vogue.com and a
longtime friend of
the model’s. “It’s
an attitude that she has and a way
that she lives. You don’t just buy seven
pieces and become Kate.” Donatella
Versace echoes the sentiment: “I don’t
know how many times I’ve heard people say they’ve found the ‘new Kate
Moss.’ There never will be a ‘new Kate
Moss.’ There is only one Kate.” To hear Moss describe it, her
approach to fashion and beauty is
simple. “I try and be a little bit chic,”
she says. “I wouldn’t wear sweatpants.
I wouldn’t wear a twinset.” Her hair
and makeup routines are equally
uncomplicated. For her hair, she likes
Kérastase styling products (she is a
spokeswoman for the company), or,
she says, “I use that Moroccanoil stuff,
and then I blow-dry it upside down
and brush it. Maybe I’ll give it a backcomb at the top. For makeup, a bit
of blusher—what you call bronzer—a
bit of an eye, and an eyelash curler.”
This approach is ideal, according to
makeup artist François Nars. “Kate
has such an amazing face—incredible
cheekbones, full lips, arresting eyes,”
he says. “All you have to do is bring
those features out.”
Moss culls her own style from a
range of sources, including old movies and magazines and exotic locales.
“I definitely get inspired by places
I go,” Moss says. “There are things
I’ve never worn [that] might be really
good in China. I did a lot of Julie
Christie when I was in Russia, with a
turtleneck, like Doctor Zhivago. It’s a
look!” When is it time for a new look?
Moss takes a drag from her cigarette.
“When it gets boring, I suppose.”
Everyone knows that Kate Moss
is cool. But she’s also nice. When she
arrives at the studio, she hugs and
kisses her old friends and introduces
herself to a couple of young male
models who showed up for a casting call, not knowing much about
the shoot or who they were about to
for photographers’ credits, see credits page.
thing,” Moss says. “The heroin, I
was like, ‘Oh, it’s ridiculous. I know
I don’t do heroin. Just because I
wear a bit of black eyeliner that’s
smudged....’ But the anorexic thing
was a lot more upsetting, to be held
responsible for somebody’s illness. I
wasn’t anorexic.” Moss didn’t really have any minders when she first started traveling
around the world as a young model,
which is perhaps why she now makes
herself available to other models following in her footsteps, specifically
Cara Delevingne. “She called me up
for some advice,” says Moss, who
credits Naomi Campbell and Christy
Turlington with giving her guidance
early in her career. Moss also learned
an important lesson about dealing
with fame from Depp: “Never complain, never explain.” That wisdom
has served her well over the years,
guiding her through several scandals. She has the remarkable ability
to bounce back and remains one of
the few models who can still command a magazine cover, now most
often the territory of A-list actresses.
“Everyone’s a celebrity. But I’m kind
of a celebrity now, so even though
I’m not an actress, people know my
name. I’m not just a face,” Moss says
matter-of-factly.
Moss now lives a fairly domestic
life, occasionally appearing in the
tabloids. (Recently, she was photographed in the Cotswolds walking
arm-in-arm with her mother-in-law
and wearing a striped fur coat and
clashing leopard-print pants. “I like
bringing a bit of rock and roll to the
country,” she says.) She still loves to
have a good time, though these days
some of her best times are spent at
home with her daughter, Lila, who she
says is a bit camera shy. “She doesn’t
like having her picture taken, really. I
think she’s seen me hiding from the
paparazzi since she was born, so she’s
like, ‘Oh no,’ ” Moss says.
That said, the apple doesn’t fall far
from the tree. “She’s watched The Devil Wears Prada ten times, and she’s
got a desk in her room with a phone....
She puts a little outfit on and picks up
the phone: ‘Hello, Miranda Priestly’s
1995
1997
Fresh skin
“I want the models
to look effortless in
a Kate Moss way,”
said makeup artist
Val Garland at
BCBG. She applied
foundation and a little powder, buffed on a
tawny blush (try Pixi Cheek Gel in Natural), and
used sheer brown shades on the lids and lips.
Matte Red Lips
Charlotte Tilbury’s
vision for the Rachel
Zoe show was “like
Kate Moss with
a ’70s edge.” It all
hinges on the
rosebud mouth, which Tilbury dabbed on with
her finger, concentrating it in the middle (try
NYC New York Color Lip Stain in Smooch Proof).
Copy Kates
Helen of Troy is totally real. Homer just got a few details wrong. Her father wasn’t
Zeus. Her name’s not Helen. And she’s alive and well and living in London.
And her face? What it actually launched was a thousand inspirations. In fact, by our
count, there were at least four this season alone. “Whatever Kate wears, it
never looks overly cosmetic,” says makeup artist Aaron de Mey. In other words,
she takes the most classic looks and makes them incredibly cool and
beautiful every time. Sort of like Helen Whatsherface. —danielle pergament
2012
Smudgy Eyeliner
“I like things that
are undone,” says de
Mey, who created
the look at Saint
Laurent. “It feels
authentic.” Or in this
case, authentically
Kate Moss. Draw a
thin line on the lower
lashes, a thick one on the upper, and blend
(we like Maybelline New York’s Master Duo).
2010
Winged Liner
“Soft, perfect, and
lightly smoked” is
how Pat McGrath
described the look
at Ferragamo. She
traced the upper
lashes three times,
with black pencil
and brown shadow.
At home, just line eyes with blackish brown
pencil and ensure the outer edges are sharp.
Free Stuff: We’re giving away products from Maybelline New York, NYC New York Color, and Pixi.
Turn to page 193 for details on how to enter.
159
Black goat-hair jacket by
Adrienne Landau. Black silk
georgette tank by Isabel
Marant. Black polyesterand-leather shorts by Rag &
Bone. Hat by Eric Javits.
Sunglasses, Moss’s own.
Details, see Shopping Guide.
office.’ ” Moss acts out the
scene, and the room fills
with laughter. “I say, ‘Lila,
do you know who Miranda
Priestly is in real life?’ But
she just doesn’t care. She’s
like, ‘Hello, Miranda Priestly’s office. Can you hold?
Patrick Demarchelier on
the line!’ ” Moss throws her
head back and cackles. “I
died when I heard her do it.
So funny. She doesn’t have a
clue who it is, but it’s word
for word. She wants to be
Anne Hathaway.
“She’s so into fashion,”
coos the proud mother, who
has one rule to impart when
it comes to personal style:
The key is making it personal. “With confidence, I
think anyone can get a dress
and make it their own,”
Moss says. “I don’t think you
should have it off the runway
and wear it like they want
you to wear it. You know,
with their hair and makeup—
their woman. I just think it’s
boring. You have to make it
your own. That’s what fashion is all about.” u
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Makeup colors: Waterproof
Gel Eyeliner in Black and
Lasting Finish By Kate Lipstick
in 101 by Rimmel London.
Spray tan by St. Tropez.
Details, see Shopping Guide.
With Mark Wahlberg in a Calvin
Klein underwear ad “That was
just really weird for me because
we were so different, and he was
really famous—it was, like, Marky
Mark. I was shy, and having to
sit like that on top of a guy who’s
muscle-y and hip-hop. I was
grunge and more Kurt Cobain, and
he was like [in deep voice], ‘Yo,
wassup?’ He was nice, though.”
1993
1993
1992
With Patricia Hartmann and
Jenny Brunt on the cover of
Allure “It was that Twiggy,
everyone’s-a-waif thing. And
then Kevyn [Aucoin]
started plucking my eyebrows.
I didn’t really have any.”
2002
1990
At a photo shoot for The Face “That’s one
of my favorite pictures. [Photographer]
Corinne [Day] really did try and change the
way people saw fashion. She hated what
was going on at the time: those kind of
pictures of the high-roller kind of women.
We did used to have a really good time.”
1998
At a party for
Mario Testino in
London “Pregnant
at Mario’s party.
Pissed off. I
thought he didn’t
invite me because
I was pregnant, so
I turned up
anyway. And he
was like, ‘Darling,
of course I invited
you.’ I was like,
‘You didn’t, did
you? You’re never
going to invite me
to any parties!’...
I loved [being
pregnant]. I loved
having a friend
with me all the
time.”
2003
With Marc Jacobs in New York
“That’s so cute. I don’t know
if that’s when I went brunette
or if that’s before I even dyed
it. I held out for a long time.”
2007
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With Mario Testino
at the Golden
Age of Couture
Gala in London
“The dress tore. It
disintegrated,
basically, at the
party, and then we
had to make it into
a short skirt, so
they were like, ‘Oh,
wow, she’s done a
change at the
party.’ I think it was
a 1930s wedding
dress. It was
beautiful when I
arrived, and then
when I left, it was a
whole other
thing. I turned it
into a grunge
gown. But that was
a good look.”
With her mother at the “Mario
Testino: Portraits” show at
the National Portrait Gallery in
London “Me and my mum.
That was one of those fluke
moments—I didn’t have
anything to wear, and I said,
‘Oh, can I borrow that dress from
the shoot?’ Or Balenciaga sent
me a couple of dresses over
and I said, ‘Oh, I’ll just wear that
one.’ I hadn’t even been home.”
2008
With daughter Lila in a photo by Mario Testino “That’s the
outcome. She doesn’t look like that anymore. It goes
so quickly. I thought she was going to be a boy, so she was
going to be a Louie. I like L names.”
2010
In a British Vogue photo at a
Mario Testino exhibition in
Madrid “It was a good shoot, that
one. A woman who can afford
couture but wants to live in a
squat. Quite rich pieces that are
all destroyed.”
With now-husband Jamie
Hince at a Mario Testino:
Kate Who? screening in
London Allure: “Do you
coordinate clothes when
you go out?” Moss:
“He’s got really good style.
I have my own leather
jacket. If I wear the biker
jacket, he can’t wear a
biker jacket. He’ll walk in
and go, ‘Oh, you’re
wearing that?’ It happens
quite often, actually.”
this page and opposite page: for photographers’ credits, see credits page.
2002
1995
In a Calvin Klein
Obsession for Men ad
“My ex-boyfriend,
[photographer] Mario
Sorrenti, took the
picture. They gave us a
house—just me and him—
and loads of film. There
was no hair and makeup.
So it was just what we
wanted to do, really. Or
what he wanted me to do.
We played around a lot.
At that time, [his mother]
had this studio, and he’d
be in the darkroom, and
I’d play loud Pink Floyd
and dance around
the studio, and then we’d
take pictures. We were
all quite excited about
creating things.”
1995
With Johnny Depp at the Golden
Globe Awards in Beverly Hills
“Johnny had this dress made for me
for my twenty-first birthday, and
it was a copy of a dress worn by Julie
Christie in Shampoo. I wore it on
Halloween recently as Morticia.”
In New York City “That was vintage. It’s just a
really good dress. It’s a good look, isn’t it?
It’s a bit rock and roll, but then it’s a bit girlie.”
Allure: “And the shoulder was supposed to
be up, right?” Moss: “Probably. But if it had been
like that, it would have been too girlie.”
2004
2005
With Christy Turlington and Naomi
Campbell at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art’s Costume Institute
Gala in New York City “They took
me under their wing for a few years.
We had so much fun. They did kind
of teach me a lot, really, about how
to deal with the way people can
treat you and the way you shouldn’t
be treated. I lived with them, and
that was a lesson in itself, how
a young woman can live on her own
and have her own driver. I’d
never seen that before. They were
just very independent women.”
2004
2006
2003
With Alexander
McQueen at his
fashion show in Paris
“I really miss him.
He didn’t care
what anyone thought.
He always stuck
up for me. That was
an old Valentino
dress, I think. It was
gorgeous.”
At her thirtieth
birthday party in
London “That was a
dress and cape I found
the day before that
was owned by Britt
Ekland. I bought it
from a vintage shop.
It was a ’20s party.”
2011
With her husband
and bridesmaids at
their wedding in
Gloucestershire,
England “So many
gorgeous girls.
There’s my sister
and Lila, but most of
them are my
godchildren, apart
from three of them,
who are my best
friends’ daughters.”
With her father
and daughter
on her wedding
day “My dad
looks so
worried. He’s
got to do a
speech. He’s
just like, ‘Uhhh,
God.’ It was
funny. It was a
really good
speech. And
Lila was just
so...she’s so
beautiful. She
was very
excited.”
At the Glastonbury
Music Festival in
Somerset, England
“That was a good
look. That really
launched the Hunter
Wellies. Now they’re
everywhere. But
nobody really wore
Wellingtons before
that to Glastonbury.
It was so muddy
that year, you had to.”
In a hologram at an Alexander
McQueen fashion show in Paris “I
wasn’t there at the show because we
thought it would be better if I wasn’t.
We thought, ‘Well, you could come in
disguise,’ like a ghost visiting. So I was
in Thailand, and I woke up at like four
in the morning the night of the show, so
I called and I could hear the applause
and the music, and everyone going,
‘Ohhh.’ I never got to see it, which is a
shame. He had such a vision.”
2012
At the London Olympic Games
opening ceremony “Oh, my God,
that was so nerve-wracking.
When we turned up, I was shaking,
and you have to go through
all this security. Everyone was
nervous. But then we all went
back to George Michael’s for a
party. The next day, I was like,
‘Now I understand how bands
feel when they do stadiums.’ ”
2012
2011
At the Kate: The Kate Moss Book
launch afterparty in London
“That was a dress from Marc
Jacobs, but we turned it back to
front, and it’s much better. It
was a last-minute adjustment.”
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